Atheism and Civil Rights

There is a discussion in the blogsphere about whether there exists a type of discrimination against atheists that counts as a civil rights issue.

Matt Nisbet in "Atheism Is Not a Civil Rights Issue" says that atheists should not compare themselves to gays, jews, and blacks as victims of discrimination.

He refers to a column in Free Inquiry magazine that says "Atheism Is Not a Civil Rights Issue"

This, in turn, refers to comments by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens that atheists do face discrimination.

Well, Friendly Atheist ignited a long discussion of the merits of blogging anonymously in "How To Blog About Atheism" that describes atheists fearing the loss of jobs and other opportunities if they should announce that they are atheists.

If there were no discrimination, then saying that one is an atheist should, in itself, be no different than saying that one is a Seventh-day Adventist.

Grothe and Dacey dismiss these concerns by saying, By their nature, minority viewpoints are unpopular and held in suspicion by the general public: just ask a Wiccan or deep ecologist.

Yet, there are countless 'minority viewpoints' that are not viewed with general distrust. Indeed, every one of us holds a minority viewpoint on at least one issue. Yet, there are few issues where we worry about the loss of jobs, friends, and even life or limb as a result.

Personally, one of the effects of letting others know that I did not believe in God when I was young was being attacked by fellow classmates. One particular attack involved holding me under water until I could hold my breath no more. I screamed for help (which, for somebody who is under water at the time, is an extreme act of despiration) - thinking that the lung full of air I screamed out was the last I would breathe.

It is a horrendously frightening experience. I think about it every time the press mentions 'waterboarding'.

Yet, that was only one religiously-motivated attack.

I wanted to spend my adult life in public service - as an elected official. However, most people will not vote for an atheist.

Phrases like, "There are no atheists in foxholes" and "Atheists cannot be moral" are bigoted statements that deprive atheists across the country from opportunities that will give their life meaning because agents in this country carefully cultivate an attitude of hate, fear, and distrust of atheists - a campaign that feeds on itself, and that cannot be broken until one points out the basic injustice of these attitudes.

There is very much in common between the unreasoned hatred of atheists expressed through denigrating stereotypes, and the unreasoned hatred of other groups expressed through denigrating stereotypes.

There is no reason to refrain from pointing out to people the fact of these similarities.

Blogging Anonymously

There is a question going about concerning the merits of blogging anonymously as an atheist.

Austin Cline in "Blogging About Atheism" offers it as a plausible suggestion.

Frienly Atheist in "How to Blog About Atheism" says that he is opposed to anonymous blogging.

Mojoey at Deep Thoughts writes in "Blogging About Atheism" blogs anonymously and casts a "yes" vote in the name of protecting his future employment prospects.

Personally, my attitude is derived from the fact that my father was willing to risk - and actually sacrificed - quite a bit in defense of what he believed in. He left the military after 12 years of service with a medical discharge - 100% disabled.

The risks that I take in using my own name - even if they do include some slightly elevated risk of life, limb, and employment - are insignificant compared to the risks that he took, or the risks of millions of people like him.

I owe it to them to be willing to take on some risk.

Homosexuality and Choice

CNN reports about a doctor who is trying to determine if it is possible to infer a person's gender and sexual orientation by knowing how he or she walks ("Step by step, researcher looks for sexuality clues").

This researcher seems particularly interested in proving (not 'discovering', for the reasearch seems to be starting with the assumption that the conclusion is true, and simply needs evidence to support it) that a person does not choose his or her sexual orientation.

This question may be interesting to some from a scientific point of view.

However, from the moral point of view, nothing follows from it.

Assume that we discover that the disposition to rape has a biological origin - that rape-desire is not chosen. We would still have reason to condemn it and to inhibit it wherever it is found. The morally relevant characteristic is not whether people choose to be rapists, but whether the disposition itself is evil.

Now, as a desire utilitarian, I also hold that the badness of a desire depends on its disposition to thwart the desires of others. A desire to rape would be bad. However, since homosexual desire can be harmonized with the homosexual desires of others (homosexuals can have mutually fulfilling sex), there is no reason to condemn it.

This is the crucial moral question - not the question of choice.

In fact, even if homosexual desire is not chosen, homosexual actions are still intentional acts. A person cannot end up in bed with somebody of the same gender and say, 'Oops, I must have tripped. I did not mean to do that.'. Well, he or she could say this, but it would be odd. No, a person does choose to approach somebody of the same gender, does choose to lead the interaction in the direction of sex, and does choose to engage in sex acts. Homosexual acts are as much a choice as any other act that we can be held morally accountable for.

Another way of expressing the idea that 'choice' has no moral relevance is to ask the question, "Would it be morally permissible for a heterosexual to engage in a homosexual act?"

The heterosexual may not want to - but the question of moral permissibility does not depend on desire. I have no desire to walk non-stop to New York this morning; yet, it would be morally permissible for me to do so.

If a heterosexual may permissibly engage in homosexual acts, then the degree of choice in homosexual desire is morally irrelevant. The acts would be permissible even for those who do not have a desire to engage in them. Indeed, this is what it means for an act to be morally permissible.

The most sinister aspect of this focus on choice is that this 'choice' assumes that homosexuality is wrong. The only reason to question (in a moral context) whether homosexuality is a choice is when one assumes that it would be wrong to choose to be a homosexual. If choosing to be a homosexual is not wrong, then what does it matter that (for some) it is not a choice? It assumes that homosexuality is bad, but seeks to acquit homosexuals on the grounds that this bad thing was forced upon them.

In fact, I hold that homosexuality is truly morally permissible, meaning that there is no 'badness' (moral or otherwise) in choosing to be a homosexual. If some doctor invented a pill tomorrow that 'cured' homosexuality, I would side with those who would refuse to take it. I suspect that there would be a lot of them, because homosexuality - though it starts out as a sexual orientation, becomes (for some) an identity. To 'cure' their homosexuality would be similar to killing the person that exists in a body and putting a different person in that body.

Private Space Station Test

Bigelow Aerospace has launched its second private space station module.

This is one of three exciting avenues of private space development currently going on. I mentioned Space Adventure's private space mission to the moon earlier. This is the same company that sends people to the International Space Station.

Bigelow Aerospace wants to create space stations that are so inexpensive that just about any country can have one - or lease one, as the case may be. They are using technology that NASA discarded.

Private Trip to the Moon

According to Space.com, if things go according to plan, in a couple of years, human eyes will once again look directly down on the far side of the moon. They'll pay for it. Two passengers at $100 million each. But, at least something is getting done.

No contracts have been signed, but Space Adventures, Inc. says that they hope to have a mission under contract by the end of the year.

How much would it cost NASA to put 2 people around the moon?

This is a slingshot mission. The customers will swing around the far side of the moon and come straight home again - on a "free return trajectory" (no engine power needed).

Next, they'll be selling an orbital mission.

I'm certain, when these people are gathered in the living room at night, just chatting, they're trying to work out something - anything - to put a person actually on the moon.

I'm not holding my breath.

But it would be cool.

Murdoch's Collateral Damage

Time Magazine has an article on Rupert Murdoch, somebody who I consider one of the most evil people on the planet - ranking with the head of Exxon-Mobile and key members of the Bush Administration.

The reason, in Murdoch's case, is that his love of profit over truth has made him billions of dollars, but at what will eventually be trillions of dollars worth of harm to others, particularly future generations. And will include a significant loss of life.

A person's lack of respect for truth is not found in the conclusions he endorses. It is found in the way he supports those conclusions. A person who loves truth makes sure to employ sound reasoning and an accurate description of the facts to reach his conclusions. Failure to do this shows that he cares nothing about the truth of his conclusions, regardless of what those conclusions actually are.

Fox News (the star jewel in Murdoch's media empire) cares nothing for true premises or sound reasoning. They will report as fact virtually anything they can get away with that supports their desired conclusions.

Those conclusions happen to be those which have cost the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis, thousands of Americans, and threaten the well-being of future generations through the effects of global warming, just to name the worst attrocities. Murdoch cannot escape responsibility for supporting the virtual distruction of basic moral principles embodied in the Bill of Rights. Those who will suffer harm from these failings will also be able to credibly blame Murdoch for those harms.

Now, he wants to buy the Wall Street Journal and the Dow JOnes company.

No doubt, he will use them to make himself wealthier, with further disregard for the loss of life, health, and well-being that others will suffer as a result.

When he talks about purchasing the Wall Street Journal, he rhetorically asks, "Why would I spend $5 billion for something in order to wreck it?"

He wouldn't.

That is to say, he would not "wreck it" for his own purposes - he will profit from it. It's the rest of us who will suffer.

The problem with his media empire to date is not that he has not profited from it. The problem is with the loss of life, health, and well-being others have and will suffer as collateral damage from the faux news he has provided in his lust for profit.

Presidential Scholars and Torture

MSNBC reported on a group of 50 Presidential Scholars who met with President Bush recently, where they gave him a hand written letter requesting that America not represent torture, end the practice of rendition, and follow the Geneva Convention with respect to captured prisoners.

It gives one some optimism for the future.

A spokesman for the Administration later said that the United States does not torture. However, our Attorney General this is a joke - a pun - a play on words. Bush's Attorney General is somebody who defined torture so narrowly that many of the things that the world sensibly considers torture would not qualify - as the equivalent of organ failure or death.

The mere fact that Bush appoints such a person to his cabinet gives the world a message that he endorses these types of messages for the world. It is effectively a big thumb's-up for torture.

The fact is that America, under President Bush, does not represent a respect for human rights any more. We are now the role model for every sole in the world who wants to be a brutal dictator. They can now point to us to justify their actions.

Another major part of the problem is that the American people seem not to mind. There has been almost no protests. There have been almost no widespread expressions of public anger that would show the world that the American people disagree with their President.

These types of public displays of disapproval are precious (and far too few).

Working Late

Sorry, folks, but I had to work late last night. That cut four hours of my producive evening, which meant no writing here or either of the two wiki projects. However, I got my Atheist Ethicist post done, so I did not waste the whole day.

Task List: Week of June 25. 2007

Last Monday I gave myself a task list of things I wanted to accomplish during the net week.

That week is over. Another week now begins.

(1) I added a history section to the Scratchpad Wiki for Desire Utilitarian, but did not add all of the relevant historical figures. However, I did explain the types of ethical theories. Furthermore, I did some work that was not on the list. I started a page that addresses the Naturalistic Fallacy, and added a section to the overview that explained the general desire-utilitarian theory of 'good'.

(2) I did start a wiki-type project on intelligent design, and added a fair amount of text to the project.

(3) I got my home site caught up, so that all of my blog enteries are listed on the front page. It's a start.

Tasks for the upcoming week.

(1) I will add to the intelligent design document every day.

(2) I will add to the wiki project every day. By the end of this week, I will finish the Naturalistic Fallacy page, write an Is/Ought page, and try to get the history section in the Overview page completed.

I sincerely like the wiki project, because it allows me to keep building on it.

I would still like to get some cooperation from others. One of the things that I would like to see is the principles of desire utilitarianism applied to issues that I do not have a particularly strong knowledge of, but which others might. I would also like to see such things as tie-ins between the theory and research in brain science.

Supreme Court Opinion in Morse vs. Frederick

The Supreme Court has decided the case of Morse and the Juneau School Board et al. v. Frederick. This is a case that I wrote about last March, where a high school student was punished for a sign that said, "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" at what was billed as a high school event. He was not punished for disrupting a school event. He was punished for expressing an opinion contrary to that which the school wanted expressed concerning the use of drugs.

I saw nothing in the Supreme Court's decision that gives me any reason to change to the argument that I gave in my earlier posting. One of the lessons that schools need to teach students is lessons on the moral inappropriateness of using violence or threats of violence to suppress opinions that one disagrees with. The Juneau School Board failed this test, and now the Supreme Court has done so as well.

Effectively, the majority opinion for the Supreme Court says that it is perfectly legitimate to use violence to prevent people from expressing opinions that one disagrees with.